One of the central aims of the ASHVIN (↗️) project, which develops a digital twin solution boosting productivity and safety of construction sites, is to propose an international standard supporting the market uptake of digital twin technologies. Austrian Standards (↗️), a national standards body, is leading the standardisation task in ASHVIN.

ASHVIN has defined its standardisation plan (↗️) and draws the standardisation landscape in Digital Twins, defining the existing gaps and reflecting the ASHVIN partners’ needs for standardisation. The most important focus points cover several areas, such as the Digital Twin application framework, the safety of construction site workers and data management.

Last year, the ASHVIN team organised two standardisation workshops where three sister EU-projects (BIM2Twin, COGITO, BIMProve) (↗️) were invited to share their insights and efforts engaged in standardisation. These sessions resulted for the moment in three focused ideas that will be researched further:

• Using UAV/Drones for the inspection of buildings/construction sites

• Monitoring of works at the construction site (tracking of the time of conducting  various works on the construction site, tracking of equipment)

• Load test of bridges in a digital way

Even more, a collaboration with the  IM-SAFE project (↗️) was initiated to tap into synergies among the linked standardisation efforts between the two projects. IM-SAFE works on a new and harmonised European standard for monitoring and maintaining structures, namely bridges and tunnels. The standardised monitoring process will imply a uniform and replicable inspection process. The new standardised monitoring will enable proper decision-making regarding maintenance needs and measures.

ASHVIN’s research, especially in working towards a standard in digitalising the load test of bridges, has raised common interests. The ASHVIN solution is validated at Demonstration Site #1, “ Bridges for High-Speed Railways in Spain” (↗️), giving a digital birth, via a digital twin, to the railway bridges. The digitalisation of the bridges would ease their maintenance work and, therefore, safety.

The two projects will continue collaborating in the next workshop planned for spring 2023 and finally in the joint meeting within the EUROSTRUCT 2023 conference.

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